BBC Introducing: Jon Fazal review

By Stephen Morris
Website contributor

Jon plays instruments including the mandolin, harmonica and glokenspiel

The influences behind Jon Fazal's music are there for all to see. From the moment that he opens his mouth on 'Pretty Sins' it's clear: Jon Fazal is a big Dylan fan.

There's the same growling, semi-snarl to his voice, a similar guitar accompaniment throughout the songs and the same sense of striving and longing throughout the lyrics.

Just like his singer-songwriter hero, Fazal's voice is stripped bare to reveal a tenderness and poignancy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his cover of Freewheelin's 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right'. But this is singing and song writing with a clear early 21st Century bent.

It's Dylan, but Dylan filtered through the voice and guitar of someone brought up on a post-Libertines diet of indie-pop.

And so, yes, 'Don't Think Twice…' comes with Dylan's prerequisite gentle acoustic accompaniment and gravely voice - hey, there's even a harmonica thrown in for good measure - but there's also the addition of a glockenspiel.

Jon Fazal is more than just a Dylan impersonator. In this music, there is a delicate intensity guaranteed to melt your heart. Stephen Morris

The glockenspiel isn't an instrument particularly associated with the artist formerly known as Robert Allen Zimmerman, but its use here adds a child-like simplicity and vulnerability that gives the song an extra sense of fragility.

Throughout the five original songs currently available on MySpace, Jon Fazal strives towards a musical poetry on a level with Dylan's.

This comes with varying degrees of success. The lyrics are at their best with 'Amelia (I'm to Leave)', painting a vivid, yet child-like picture of landscapes: "The pylons seem so frightening like the skeletons of giants/imprisoned and chained up across the hills".

The song reflects a common theme within Fazal's music: the desire to break free from the drudgery of life.

Elsewhere, 'Running all of the Time' tells the Eleanor Rigby-ish tale of a woman with a broken heart, unable to break free from the drudgery of her existence.

Meanwhile, 'Stars Through a Bottle' has a similarly melancholic story. This time it's about a drunk who "knows that he's lost all/'Cos all that he sees are/the stars through an empty bottle of whiskey".

With 'Amelie', even the things that collude in oppression seem to be oppressed themselves: pylons, the vessels which bring the means with which we enslave ourselves, are chained up themselves.

Meanwhile, the countryside, an object of hope and peace, finds itself engulfed in an encroaching malaise ("receding like a puddle into concrete").

Jon says he is influenced by Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Neil Young

For all this depressing imagery, Jon Fazal's music is filled with a sense of optimism.

There is a large yearning for a happiness that must only be just round the corner throughout these songs.

'Amelie', for example, ends with a repeated refrain of "I'm to leave". It's a message of hope for better times - and it doesn't seem to be unfounded.

Even the opening song 'Pretty Sins' with its lines about losing faith, truth, love and all things that could ground you in happiness offers some sense of redemption: "Your fortune seems fairer when your nightmares start to fade".

Where the lyrics begin to wobble slightly is in Fazal's repeated reference to the act of song writing: "I still have time to write this song" (Pretty Sins), "I've been trying to organise my thoughts in verses" (Running all of the Time) and "I'm just a scatter of words/we're all strung out into sentences, gathered up in verse (Scatter of Words).

While the occasional tinge of self awareness can add a sense of the personal to a lyric, maybe it should be used a little more sparingly.

These are minor quibbles in what is in truth a strong collection of songs.

Jon Fazal is more than just a Dylan impersonator (although the similarities are too great to simply ignore). In this music, there is a delicate intensity guaranteed to melt your heart.

The songs here are perfect to wallow in if you're feeling a bit down: an ideal pick-me-up. Listen to this and enjoy. With any luck, there will be more to follow.